Monday, October 1, 2007

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: The new system will give Ontario 22 more politicians and their staff at Queen's Park?

Currently, Ontario has 107 representatives who represent almost 13 million people. That's one Member for about 119,000 people. This makes Ontarians the most under-represented citizens in Canada by far.

Under the new model proposed by the Ontario Citizens' Assembly, the total number of members will rise to 129. That will be one Member for about every 95,000 Ontarians, a marked improvement.

At 129 seats, the new legislature will still be smaller than previous Ontario legislatures. Queen's Park had 130 seats from 1987 to 1999.

This will represent a tiny portion of the overall Ontario budget. That will be money well-spent to ensure that every vote counts (unlike now) and that laws passed by our government are supported by parties representing over 50% of the people (unlike now.)

Under MMP, you're guaranteed one local representative, just like now. But you'll also be able to elect 39 new, province-wide representatives. That's 40 people directly accountable to you, elected to represent your interests at Queen's Park, unlike just one (1) now.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Sadly, if you travel to the countries that have MMP, the politicians don't know who they are representing so they represent no one.MMP simply takes party politics to a new low giving politicians more excuses as to why things don't get fixed.

MMP keeps FPTP not fixes it. The party lists mainly for small parties to get seats give PR to no other social groups, which have to obediently seek the patronage of the parties.To make government accountable we need STV which equitably or proportionly prefers individual candidates to directly represent the voters wishes, rather be obliged to the parties. Voting should be for voters not parties.I have studied this subject on my site: Democracy Science for theories of love, political economic democracy and an all-purpose electoral system...

All four major parties have pledged to hold democratic, transparent votes to nominate their province-wide candidates. There will be no appointments of province-wide candidates.

In fact, anonymous (why do opponents never sign their name to their thoughts?), you are completely wrong about the experience of MMP in other countries. In Germany and New Zealand, it's noted there is virtually no difference between district reps and list reps. Both serve the voters. Both focus on their regions. In Ontario's proposal, most list members will also have run in a riding as a candidate (because governments don't usually get list members), thus those list members will know from which region they were nominated to run on the list, and with plans to run again in a riding, they'll know full well who they're representing. While list members will focus primarily on their home regions, they'll still be province-wide so anyone in the province will be able to contact them.

Liberals For Electoral Reform

This site was set up by Liberal Party volunteers who supported the Ontario Citizens' Assembly's proposal for change, Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), in the October 2007 Ontario referendum. This site is not affiliated with any provincial Liberal Parties, or the Liberal Party of Canada, or with Fair Vote Canada.